The nation’s top social networking sites are eager to turn their popular Web pages into money machines.

MySpace announced Monday a significant expansion of its fledgling advertising efforts with the aim of giving advertisers new tools to target products and services at members. Facebook, which is not as large as MySpace but growing faster, is expected to unveil an advertising system of its own at noon today.

The dual push is evidence that both Internet sites are eager to commercialize their online networks, which have attracted millions of users but not yet fully turned popularity into revenue. Social networks allow members to link to friends by computer and share information about activities, interests and jobs.

The new advertising systems simultaneously show that both sites are determined to profit from some of the personal information they have gathered from members, letting advertisers target ads at groups of users by interest, demography and location. While these ads are deemed more relevant to users, they also have raised concerns among privacy experts.

The announcements also suggest a possible conflict with search advertising sellers Google and Microsoft, which have ties to the sites. Microsoft has a deal to supply advertising to Facebook and last month took a $240 million stake in the company. Google last year signed a $900 million deal to supply advertising to MySpace and other Fox Interactive Media properties, which are owned by News Corp.

Despite the privacy worries, experts said the efforts could meet with success.

“They have a huge audience,” said Jeremiah Owyang, a senior analyst at Forrester Research. When “you have that many people, there’s just an onslaught of opportunity.”

In its announcement, MySpace unveiled “SelfServe,” a tool that will let small businesses create and target ads. The service will debut in a “beta” test version in early 2008.

MySpace, which in June had 28.8 million average daily visitors, also said it completed the first phase of deploying a “HyperTergeting” system now used by 50 advertisers, including big companies such as Procter & Gamble, Microsoft, Ford and Sony. The system was rolled out in July and permitted ads targeting 10 consumer categories, such as music, movies, personal finance and travel.

Advertisers now will be able to segment users through the use of more than 100 sub categories, such as horror films, according to a company press release.

Facebook is expected to show off its own targeted ad system, said industry sources, though details were unavailable. Facebook had 15 million average daily visitors in June. A company spokesman declined to comment.

“There is a lot of experimenting,” going on with social networking advertising, said Steve Patrizi, director of advertising sales at the social networking site, LinkedIn. And while so far “no one has really nailed” the perfect formula for creating and placing ads, the potential is tremendous.

“There is a great audience spending a growing amount of time on these social networks,” said Patrizi. After more than a year of using targeted advertising, LinkedIn has more than 100 advertisers and is growing ad volumes and strong renewal rates, he said.

But some observers remain skeptical. The question is whether people come to MySpace and Facebook to buy things or simply to meet and socialize with friends, said Keith Benjamin, managing partner at the venture firm Levensohn Venture Partners.

“I think it’s going to be easy to get advertisers to test,” said Benjamin. “I’m skeptical whether targeting is going to get people to click through and buy something.”

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